▪ I. blotch, n.
(blɒtʃ)
[A comparatively recent word, with no cognates outside Eng. App. an onomatopœic modification of blot, for which it is commonly used dialectally: the sound seems to express a broader spreading blot, of the nature of a patch. But in sense 1 there may have been association with the earlier botch. The suggestion that it is a variant of blatch ‘blacking’, finds no support in the history of either word.]
1. a. An inflamed eruption, or discoloured patch, on the skin; a pustule, boil, or botch.
| 1604 [see blotched]. 1669 W. Simpson Hydrol. Chym. 72 In its road it leaves its character of Spots, Stains, Blotches, Buboes, Ulcers, &c. in..the skin. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 16 ¶2 Healing those Blotches and Tumours which break out in the Body. 1740 Cheyne Regimen Pref. 34 The Diseases of Infancy are generally Scabs, Blotches and Blains over the Face, etc. 1866 Rogers Agric. & Prices I. xv. 293 Dark blotches appear on the skin. |
| fig. 1882 Farrar Early Chr. II. 199 Which showed that they regarded Gentiles as worthless, and even Proselytes as little better than a blotch on the health of Israel. |
b. spec. A disease in dogs.
| 1824 Annals Sporting VI. 265, I found his haunches exhibited appearances of a disease..termed the ‘blotch’. |
c. A disease of fruit or leaves, characterized by the formation of spots; sooty blotch, a disease of the apple.
| 1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl. |
2. a. A large irregular spot or blot of ink, colour, etc.; a dab or patch.
| 1768 Tucker Lt. Nat. II. 396 To brush off the soil..and not suffer it to gather in pitchy blotches upon the surface. 1807 Sir R. Wilson in Life II. vii. 83 The snow fell in large blotches. 1870 H. Macmillan Bible Teach. x. 201 Its leaves are covered with brown unsightly blotches. 1873 J. T. Moggridge Ants & Spiders ii. 76 Four blotches of paler colour. |
b. fig. = blot 2.
| 1860 Hawthorne Marble Faun (1879) II. xii. 122 Ignoring all moral blotches. |
c. transf. A rude clumsy daub.
| 1860 Smiles Self-help iv. 71 The artist..attempting to produce a brilliant effect at a dash, will only produce a blotch. |
d. A shapeless object.
| 1872 Browning Fifine lxxix. 17 Catch the puniest..And, as you nip the blotch 'twixt thumb and fingernail, etc. |
3. = blot (of ink). (North of Eng. and Scotl.)
Cf. blotching,
| 1863 Atkinson Provinc. Danby, Blotch, a blot, in a copy⁓book, or on a clean piece of paper. Blotch paper, blotting paper. |
▪ II. blotch, v.
(blɒtʃ)
[f. prec. n.]
1. trans. To mark or cover with blotches.
| 1604 [see blotched]. 1774 Goldsm. Hist. Earth v. 79 The tail is..irregularly barred and blotched with an obscure ash colour. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxii. (1856) 281 A great plain, blotched by dark, jagged shadows. 1865 Baring-Gould Werewolves vi. 75 Its walls were blotched with lichen. |
2. = blot v.1 (Common in Scotl. and north of Eng., as ‘He has blotched two pages of his book.’) Cf. blotching, blotchy.